A Franklin County gun business is making an 11th-hour stand against a proposal that would ban the manufacture and sale of high-capacity firearm magazines. Attorney Brady Toensing, a lobbyist for Century International Arms, said the legislation would kill the company, which employs more than 100 people at its Georgia manufacturing plant.
“This law would put them out of business,” said Toensing, who also serves as vice chair of the Vermont Republican Party.
The company manufactures and sells handguns and semiautomatic rifles similar to the AK-47, as well as accessories for those guns. Since many of the AK-47-style guns come standard with 30-round magazines, a 10-round limit on magazines would require Century International Arms to make a major change to its operations.
Toensing said he wants to get the magazine capacity limit completely removed from the firearms bill under consideration in the House Friday. That bill would also mandate universal background checks for private sales, raise the legal age to purchase a gun to 21 and ban bump stocks for guns that allow semiautomatic weapons to fire at a faster rate. Toensing did not raise concerns about the other provisions in the bill.
“I’m concerned that it would ban high-capacity magazines,” Toensing said.
The House is expected to vote on the bill Friday. If the legislation gets preliminary approval, it would be subject to final approval next week.
After speaking with Toensing, Rep. Corey Parent (R-St. Albans) said Friday that he hopes to find a way to amend the bill so that it would not hurt Century International Arms’ Vermont operations.
Toensing said he hasn’t considered compromise language that might address his client’s concerns.
“I just got brought on last night, so I’m at the very early stages of even dealing with this issue. I’m trying to get up to speed,” he said.
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
It’s very sad that 100 people will lose their jobs over this law. Vermont is a great place to live if you can provide your own employment. Jobs lost are almost never regained, forcing many good people to leave the state. I can clearly remember how bad the layoff at IBM was in 2002. Most of those families had to move away and never recovered financially. This time, however, it is entirely the result of politics. These workers have the unfortunate bad luck to work in a job that is no longer acceptable to the VT Legislature. If this company were instead, selling weed, I’m sure the Legislature would applaud. Of course our representatives never objected to taking tax money from a gun business.
For the record, they are not “high-capacity” magazines. They are standard capacity, because that is how those particular firearms were originally designed. 20 round magazines are also quite common because that is the number of rounds in a standard box of ammunition. Many handguns hold 15 rounds because that is the number of 9mm rounds that will fit in an average sized hand. Arbitrarily limiting a handgun to 10 rounds would actually be a “restricted-capacity” magazine.